Time has not been kept for long.
words we know
as well as
any message sent forward in time,
filled with a metaphor
filled with a meaning
in tended to change a state of not
known to known
in a measurable quant of time, this
time
totally im
material reality we live and breathe and
have our being in.

“You look like my daughter”
The man says to me,
As he’s ordering me a drink
Looking my body up and down.

I laugh,
Look away,
Try to pretend he didn’t say that

Oh but don’t worry
He made it a point
to mention
T H R E E
              M O R E
                           T I M E S
how my body
Resembled his daughters,
“Tight, perfect, the right kind”

Oof.
Idk y’all
Idk that I can do this.
I walk away
I dont make that money.
Even though I know **** well,
I fit his ****** up fantasies.

Not to mention I’m triggered,
Thanks to my childhood trauma,
By all of this conversation,
But it doesn’t really matter
Anyways.
Just a product of my environment
Just an object to fill
The desires
Of hungry eyes.

**** it
Let me be
An empty *** doll.
Just take my intelligence with you please.
Flowers for Algernon ,
And I’m wilting.
I’m too aware of my place in society.

Why strive to peruse my education,
When I know no one will hire me
Because of my background?
Why stay sober,
When my ******* flashbacks
Only stop when I’m drunk?

I hate my life.
No I don’t like the job I have;
But this **** ain’t easy.

And none of it is my fault.
It isn’t.
None of my trauma is my fault.

At least At the end of the day
I have the comfort
Of knowing,
That I matter just as little as the next person.
My life,
In all of its glory,
matters just as little as john f Kennedy’s
I am nothing
And we are nothing

Our suffering is eternal

I have never had much luck with love. Explanations only skim the surface of the sea. Always caught up on the hooks at the end of your line.

You tug on the spool and play with your food. Just reel me in. A wish on a dandelion, I get blown to the wind.

Piglet and Pooh, sweet is the honey we are destined to lose. I send kisses through the door you scream at me through.

Flourish and wither like the wrinkled crease down the heart of our family picture. Dice with the devil, cee-lo with evil. Paranoia through the peephole. High on her ego.

-


i cast only shadows
of twilight,

but like a ghost, i can
spoon deceptively well~

following just a fingernail away,
i can scrape the periphery of your
senses at any given moment

yet i remain outside a passing glance,
just beyond the visual reach of mirrors

for i am the corpse you sleep with nightly,
evidenced by those occasional scratch marks
i leave on your shoulders, neck, buttocks

the thing you've spent most of your lifespan
dismissing as some graveside mourner you
simply turned your eyes away from

yet as a faucet of sand left dripping,
you pool into the spaces between
the plankings of oblivion

Someday,

you will wake to a rope-snap
suspension upon the gallows
of my choosing

as you pour out the last
grain from the hourglass
of your lifespan

your fingertips slipping
down its smoothed
surfaces

— knowing — 

as i watch you
fall away

from far,
far
         above...



s jones
May 2021


.

-

i could imagine this word
being used by a hypnotist
to induce a trance

or maybe typed in as a fake
name on a website to get
access to free software–

but i would really like
to put this into some
possible context,

(being how i just
thought of it)

(~!@"–MoonFish–"@!~)

i could cast a line into
the Sea of Tranquility
and pull one out

pop a tab on a beer
while firing up my
portable grill,

scale it, clean it,
cook it-
                eat it.


(<Moon-Fish>)

the name of a poem written
for somebody who works
at a fisherman's wharf,

moonlighting as a night
watchman kicking rats
off the pier.

moon fish—

a phrase coined by an
amateur poet for an
idea that may never
actually come to being...



s jones
Apr 2021


.

I have to stop falling in love with strangers,
The way their smile slides into view so slow,
When they call me beautiful in sign language and don’t realize I know.
When they leap past, dressed in all black,
Their own cryptic, creeping steps and clinging to the shadows- midnight at noon.
Scowls and imploring eyes and fists itching for my throat,
Teeth sinking into tongues and lips, grasping desperately for control.
Confused if it was their gasp or my own when the light catches just right,
Nervous laughter as they mention wives before a disappointed sigh.
Fantasy and fiction churning real beings into metallic dreams,
Magnetic storms at their energy,
a missed soul connection,
and Shadow Knights.

Depleted and tired of pleading,
Unfocused and incapable,
Simultaneous logical advocating.
Sustaining for minutes and moments,
But time is always so fleeting.
Laughter dying on my lips,
before pain and a grimace.
Promises and answers whispered,
Hope swelling but bursting so quickly.
Scars and burns on my skin,
Attempting to calm the agony within.
And tumbling, always falling, never finding the ground,
But when I do,
Will it crush me?
Or will I hit water and drown?